POLAND – Despite being winless thus far on the season, Gray-New Gloucester has hung tough with some of the Western Maine Conference’s top teams.

No one knows this better than Poland, which held a slim lead through three quarters in their first meeting on Dec. 16 before pulling away in the final period of a 53-35 victory.

In Saturday night’s rematch, the Knights didn’t want to take any chances, using a 10-0 run to start the second half and separate themselves from the Patriots on their way to a 64-48 win.

Alex Smith led the Knights (4-3) with 16 points and seven rebounds (all of them offensive). Keegan Fennessey added 14 points off the bench and Max Levine contributed a solid all-around game with 12 points, six assists and four steals.

Tyler Blanchard paced the Patriots (0-7) with 15 points, while John Edmistion added 12.

“We’re an inexperienced team. We start two sophomores, so we’re kind of learning as we go,” said G-NG coach Mike Andreasen. “Where we’ve had the biggest deficiency is in the fourth quarter. When we played Poland at our place earlier, we were down four or five going into the fourth quarter and they stretched it out from there, somewhat analagous to what they did tonight.”

The Knights started the game a bit streaky from the field, missing their first five shots before Fennessey came off the bench firing a pair of 3-pointers to trigger an 11-0 run that put them ahead for good.

Gray-New Gloucester doubled Poland’s big men in the post all night, daring Poland to beat them from the outside. The Knights obliged by drilling 6-of-10 from beyond the arc in the first half.

“We shot the ball well tonight,” said Poland coach J.P. Yorkey. “Gray-New Gloucester a real scrappy team, but they’re a little undersized, so they had to give each other some help down in the low post, so we expected that.”

Yet the Patriots hung around thanks to some strong perimeter shooting of their own, converting 4-of-6 treys. They pulled to within three of the Knights three times in the second quarter, the final time on a conventional three-point play by Blanchard that made it 24-21 with 4:24 to go in the half. Sparked by treys from Smith and Fennessey, however, Poland was able to inflate the lead back to eight by halftime.

Another 3 by Smith and a three-point play by Fennessey to open the third quarter set the wheels in motion for Poland to pull away. G-NG missed its first eight shots from the floor and didn’t score until Blanchard’s layup with 3:23 to go in the quarter.

“That was the difference,” said Andreasen. “(Poland) didn’t set the world on fire shooting it, either, but if you’ve got an eight-point deficit and they even get seven in half a quarter, that’s a 15-point deficit.”